Google AdSense Preview Tool Causes Frustration

A number of members on WebmasterWorld are frustrated with the Google AdSense Preview Tool (which is available for IE versions 6.x and 7.x and allows you to preview ads that may appear on your website and filter out ads that will not do much for advertisers). A number of complaints have been addressed about the tool, particularly with regards to its ineffectiveness and lack of functionality. Additionally, there are just too many "spammy ads" that are hitting advertisers' sites and causing anger amongst AdSense publishers.

Each and every time I click to open the preview tool my web page "jumps down" so I can only see the bottom of the page.

I was wondering what she meant, so I installed the AdSense Preview Tool and tested it out on Barry's blog. It seems that opening the tool causes the ad to disappear out of view. Very strange. See the animated GIF for what I mean:

- show ads that will show instead of ads that may show
- show ads restricted on ad format (e.g. only 468x60)
- show non text ads as well (e.g. image, video, flash)
- notify Adsense on an ad, directly from the tool